Carol Bowne Murdered by Ex-boyfriend.. and New Jersey Laws

Carol Bowne is dead. The petite hairdresser was murdered by her ex-boyfriend.. and by the state of New Jersey.

Bowne had received threats from her ex-boyfriend. She did everything a law-abiding citizen could do in New Jersey. She obtained a protective order. She installed security cameras inside and outside her home.

Sadly, the restraining orders and cameras are only useful for collecting evidence and bringing charges against an assailant after she was attacked. These measures didn't matter.

Carol was stabbed to death as she drove home and stepped onto her driveway.

Ms. Bowne tried to get a firearm for self-defense. She started the long process to be allowed to buy a gun in New Jersey. The state delayed her application and Bowne ran out of time. Her ex did not honor the protective order to leave her alone, just as New Jersey bureaucrats did not honor the right of self-defense. Carol Bowne died defenseless. It takes honorable citizens who obey the law up to nine months to buy a firearm in New Jersey. It can be done in an hour if you buy an illegal gun.

Jersey law requires authorities to reply to permit petitioners within 30 days. That law is routinely ignored, as it was in the case of Carol Bowne. New Jersey gun owners report that state authorities deliberately slow the permit process to inhibit the lawful possession of firearms. Carol Bowne called the police and asked about her permit after 41 days. They said she had to wait. She bled to death two days later.

The man who murdered Carol Bowne was a convicted felon. He had a previous charge of battery and armed kidnapping of another women. The police dropped the charges and the murderer never served jail time for that assault.

The police knew her murderer.. and yet they denied Carol Bowne a firearm purchase permit to defend herself.

If she'd lived, Bowne might have, someday, received her permit to own a firearm for self-defense. She could have taken that firearm with her as she walked to her car to leave her home.. if she was the homeowner. Under New Jersey law, she would have had to be disarmed if she was a renter.

Under New Jersey law she would have to be disarmed when she arrived home. New Jersey Police Chiefs refuse permits to carry a concealed firearm for self-defense. New Jersey law delivered a defenseless victim as Carol Bowne got out of her car.

Carol's only hope of armed defense was to leave the state. Carol Bowne continued to live in her New Jersey home and became another defenseless victim.

New Jersey gun control costs lives. So do the citizens who sit by as Jersey politicians disarm honest citizens. At long last, anti-rights New Jersey Senator Stephen Sweeney faces a recall campaign. Will you sit and do nothing for the next Carol Bowne?
~_~_

About Rob Morse: By day, Rob Morse works as a mild mannered engineer for a Southern California defense contractor. By night he writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily and on his SlowFacts blog. He is an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.

9 thoughts on “Carol Bowne Murdered by Ex-boyfriend.. and New Jersey Laws”

New Jersey is dead. There is no hope left. You will have to replace the entire state legislature, and given the strangle-hold that the redistricting gave the socialists, it isn’t possible in one lifetime. If you have any net-worth, vote with your feet and move to PA. I did, and life is much nicer when you don’t live in a police state. My sincere wish for NJ is that the politicians, public servants and welfare recipients all be stuck with one another. After that happens, it will be very entertaining to see which group of rats gets kicked out of the sinking ship.

Hiding and protecting criminals, such as those in the New Jersey and elsewhere, who fail to support and uphold either our Constitution, or even their own rules and regulations, is a root cause of the problem. We need to give names and faces to the government functionaries who helped make this murder possible and prosecute them as accessories to the crime.

As long as the rule makers have no skin in the game the will have no qualms about putting you at risk. It is time for a serious national discussion about just how much legislative exemption from personal responsibility is appropriate. We’re allowing our elected and appointed mandarins too much diplomatic immunity.

The NRA and the 2ndA Society seem notably powerless against NJ and been that way for years. Now NJ assembly is passing more un-natural Laws to entrap people owning guns by attaching them to domestic violence Laws / Folks with this All going on and continuing MOVE OUTA NJ as quick as possible, cut your losses the Dems own and control this horrific state, along with all its other problems. Urge friends/family not to go vacation there or make purchases there level a full Boycot. Christie wont be there forever to veto this crap thats all designed to cost people alota money or jail them.

If the pro-crime anti-self-defense legislators and other similar individuals, who helped make this possible, could be held personally responsible, perhaps as in jail time etc. as accessories to murder, I bet things would change in a hurry. A recall, if successful, would be symbolic, but the lady is still dead, and more similar events can be expected. Maybe we could work to prevent these things rather than just blaming “government” and penalizing the participants with a recall, which has little or no long term effect.

I propose a “thought experiment.” Why not consider the New Jermany actions, and others of the same kind elsewhere, as crimes against persons? Try this analogy: If someone acts in any way to prevent you from defending yourself, such as physically restraining you, or preventing you from owning a firearm, or limiting where and how you can carry it, or restricting the caliber and number of rounds you may have, or takes any other action of any kind that allows others to cause you harm, shouldn’t that person be personally, guilty of several crimes?

The pro-criminal-rights people try to hold us, legal gun owners, responsible for every firearms related crime we did not commit, so why shouldn’t these anti-human-rights folks be individually and personally responsible for their actual anti-social and criminal behavior?

We need to remove the legal shields that protect these people, in particular legislators and prosecutors, from the consequences of their acts.

The article says her ex-boyfriend was a convicted felon but then says those charges were dropped. That is confusing. Clearly though she had a reasonable fear that he was going to hurt her, and found out that a piece of paper doesn’t deter someone with criminal intent. How can police and legislators sleep soundly when their irrational fear of armed citizens has led to a woman being murdered in her driveway? Shame on you people. You are disgusting Americans to me, as you sit behind your desks and pass legislation that murder the citizens you were sworn to protect. Maybe you’ll get to experience the loss of a loved one being murdered, so will know how her family feels. Then maybe you’ll see the insanity of your actions.

In New Jersey it does not matter that she was on her property – regardless of whether she was coming or going because like DC “justifiable need” and New Jermany does not issues permits unless you are a LEO. Her gun would have been in her house, not on her or in her car. She would have been screwed either way in New Jersey unless she wanted to face the Graves act with a 3-5 year minimum for unlawful possession.

Funny because they are trying to pass a “domestic violence law” to save women – yet New Jermany is a state where it’s virtually impossible for a woman to defend herself against stalkers or whoever intends to do harm.

A lot of these anti-gunner women hate guns – until they need one.

Anyone who thinks it’s easy to get a gun in New Jermany needs to go through the process – that criminals DONT and find out how difficult and intentionally redundant it is.

There’s a missing fact in the article above. In NJ you are only allowed to transport your handgun, as described in the article, when in direct transit between your home, a firearms retailer or a range. You are not allowed to have a handgun in your car at any other time in New Jersey without a Concealed Carry Permit which is nearly impossible to get as there are less than 1700 in a state of 12 million. Additionally, you cannot make any stops while transporting your handgun as described above unless it is considered a reasonable deviation. Problem is, there is no legal definition of what a reasonable deviation is so in essence you cannot stop and must take the most direct route otherwise you are a committing a felony.